Ruby Tuesday

Chapter twenty four

As soon as the front door slammed shut I was on my feet, brushing crumbs off my jumper and sprinting down the stairs. I leapt into Jack's unsuspecting arms, inhaling deeply. He smelt like cigarettes and expensive cologne. "Oh God, oh God," my voice muffled against his neck. "You're home!"

    "Yeah I'm home," he chortled gently easing me out of his grip and setting me back on the floor. His suitcases and bags were pooled around his feet. He looked tanned and a hell of a lot thinner than I remembered. "How you been?"

"It's been so boring without you," I bent down picking up some of his bags and waddling up the stairs. "Come on, I'll make you a drink...some food too, you look like you've not fed in a week."

As soon as we were both upstairs he snatched the bags from my grasp and discarded them. I was in his arms and in a flourish of giggles and kisses I was swept away to the bedroom. We didn't resurface for another two hours.

That evening, Jack insisted on taking me to a Beatles show despite it having been sold out months prior. He lounged on the bed stark naked with a fag protruding from his plump lips as I sat at the dresser meticulously applying makeup. He watched with an avid interest as I glued false eyelashes on. I squeezed myself back into the cocktail dress I'd worn with Angie and did a small twirl.

"Looking good, girl." He leapt up, shoving on any old clobber and rapidly running a comb through his hair.

"Do you think so?" I pulled a disconcerted face, angling sideways in the mirror. "I feel like I look really bloated."

"Awh," he squeezed my arm as he rushed by. "Has someone been comfort eating in my absence?" I rolled my eyes and decided against responding.

The Beatles as always were top class. We had our own little balcony with Charlie and his wife. I felt like Lady Muck perched up high above everyone else. The crowd was going barmy. Proper crazy. Girls just screamed and screamed, tears pouring down their blushed cheeks and a sea of arms and grasping hands soared above their heads as everyone tried to rip themselves their very own member of a Beatle. 

After the show we were lead backstage into the dressing rooms. The lads were sat down, sweat spilling down their foreheads and seeping through their satin shirts. Satin and sweat was a terrible mixture. Occasionally the odd fan was allowed in, big-eyed and trembling bottom lip. I must have been a similar age to most of them and yet they looked so much younger, so much more innocent. If I was forced to pick a Beatle to spend the night with then hands down it would have been Ringo. I didn't really know what it was but there was something quite sexy about him. Angie thoroughly disagreed, arguing that clearly, the only choice was John Lennon.

The after party was at some grand club I forgot the name of. It had high ceilings with massive chandeliers that quaked with the music. I spotted Anita a mile away and disentangled myself from Jack, making a beeline straight for her.

She popped something in her glass which made the alchohol fizz. "Here," she drawled forcing the flute into my hand. I tried to hand it back. "No seriously dear, you'll want this."

"Thanks," I frowned still trying to awkwardly hand the glass back to her. "I'm not really into drugs so-"

She pushed her index finger to my mouth shutting me up instantly. "Shh! I see you a lot and you're so tense, always so uptight. Maybe it's how stern you are that attracts Jack to you. Kind of like a matron feel, yes?" She raised her eyebrows and shimmied her shoulders with a light laugh. I wasn't uptight and strict. As the lights, blue, red, green danced across Anita's skin she looked mystical, ethereal almost. "It is a nice notion, you know, to be the rock of reality at his side but it will wear him down. You won't keep him."